


Let the Dead be Dead

by mpatientdreamr



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Background Character Death, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 10:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mpatientdreamr/pseuds/mpatientdreamr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia Martin, (psychic) consulting detective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let the Dead be Dead

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [[Art for] Let the Dead be Dead by mpatientdreamr](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144677) by [pentapus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentapus/pseuds/pentapus). 



> For the Teen Wolf Reverse Bang! Inspired by art by pentapus, found here [](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1144677%E2%80%9D>%5BArt%20for%5D%20Let%20the%20Dead%20be%20Dead%20by%20mpatientdreamr%20%0A</a>.%0A%0ABeta'd%20by%20the%20delightful%20jessa_anna.%0A%0ATitle%20comes%20Things%20My%20Mother%20Didn't%20Tell%20Me%20But%20Should%20Have%20by%20Meggie%20C.%20Royer.)
> 
> Many thanks to jessa-anna for the amazing beta.

Lydia turned down a darkened hallway, following the haunting song that was being played on a string instrument. The school, she was in the school. The deep, thrumming notes pulled at her, causing her heart to pound. She stopped at a door that she only vaguely recognized and carefully pushed it open. 

She stepped out into the woods, a chill wind rushing up her spine. The music gave way to owls and crickets. Misty shadows drifted between the trees. A familiar howl rent the night. Lydia froze in fear, then spun to flee through the door. A girl stood behind her, face pale and eyes wide enough to show the whites, pupils blown. Blood started to blossom along her side as the howling grew louder. She launched herself at Lydia, screaming, and turned to mist.

Lydia jerked awake with a gasp, a scream clawing at the back of her throat. She breathed deep, calming her heart and shoving the fear away.

“Fine,” she said, staring up at her pale ceiling. “Fine, I'll look into it.”

She rolled over, reaching for the sketchpad she kept on her bedside table.

* * *

Lydia tapped the file against her thigh. She didn't like waiting but she was asking for a favor. Asking for punctuality was obviously too much.

Stiles stumbled into his office covered in blood, sadly not an uncommon occurrence for the Sheriff's station anymore, and her hand clenched on the file.

“Sorry,” he said as he slammed the door behind him, the blind rattling loudly in the sudden silence. “There was a thing. Scott was helping,”

“Is any of that yours?” she asked numbly as he started prying the soaked uniform shirt from his skin and off his broad shoulders.

“Maybe,” he said with a negligent shrug. “You know I'm clumsy. There are probably some scratches or something.” Her panic subsided as he looked up from fishing around in the bottom drawer of his desk and grinned at her. “See something you like?”

He yanked his undershirt over his head before she could answer and she cursed her fair complexion. They'd been in a holding pattern since college, she and Stiles. They were playing chicken for their hearts and while no one was winning, no one had lost either.

He'd practically invited her to, so she let her eyes trace down broad shoulders to a narrow waist, pale skin covered in scars of varying ages, intricate tattoos, and just enough chest fuzz to pique her interest. Every man she'd dated to that point had been into manscaping to model proportions, including shaved chests. Stiles had given up on being anyone's ideal a long time ago, and she was slowly coming to the realization that his disregard for others' opinion was what was so appealing to her.

“Maybe,” she finally acceded, shrugging, as he pulled on his clean undershirt, covering up the marks of his Emissary status.

He grinned at her as the tips of his ears turned red. “Well, you know I always think you're perfect, so. What can I do for you today, Consulting Detective Martin?”

He left off the 'psychic' part of her descriptor, for which she was grateful.

“I need your files of missing teenage girls from 15 to 18 years ago,” she said.

He collapsed back into his desk chair and she winced at the loud, protesting squeal it let out. “That's gonna be a lot of files.”

“Brunette, between the ages of 14 and 18, has some connection to cello music,” she rattled off, tapping her file against her knee.

He froze at the last, eyes widening slightly. “When did this job come across your desk?”

She hesitated, suddenly on high alert. “A month ago, maybe two. You know who I'm talking about.”

A guess, but a good one because his shoulders slumped and he rolled towards a filing cabinet she knew to be full of 'special' cases. “Peter Hale told me a story a long time ago. About Derek's first girlfriend.” He unlocked the cabinet and pulled out a thin file. “It's Peter, so, you know, take everything with a grain of salt. But she was one of the first I added to the cabinet. And he lied about at least one thing. Her body was never found.”

She flipped open both the file he handed her and the file in her lap and felt a chill as the sketch she'd drawn matched the photograph of the smiling girl, dark hair falling over one shoulder and that distinctive mole under her left eye.

“It's her,” Stiles guessed, and she looked up to find him studying her. 

“Yes,” she said, nodding. Her fingers traced along the edges of the photograph. “It's her.”

“That doesn't make any sense,” he said, standing as she stuffed both files into her briefcase and stood, hurrying for the door. “She was killed years ago. She would have reached out ages ago if she wanted your help.”

Lydia stopped with her hand on the knob and turned to look at him, her eyes haunted. “Some of them don't want to be found.”

She left before he could question her further. She had work to do.

* * *  
Lydia was a bit shocked to look up and see Stiles standing in the doorway of her office, hands braced on his utility belt.

“You're not supposed to be in here,” she said, internally wincing when her voice came out hoarse.

“Well, nobody's seen you for two days and you haven't answered your phone,” he said, stepping cautiously but curiously into the room, taking in the movable boards covered in math and murder situated in front of book cases full of random odds and ends and her investigation kits. “So this is what the inside of your head looks like, huh?”

Her eyes kept loosing focus as his voice faded in and out. She tried to remember the last time she'd eaten anything. She groped around for her desk drawer, got an energy bar out, and shoved most of it into her mouth. After the initial gag, she felt her body start to realize that, yes, she was hungry. So no longer than a day without, then.

“I figured it out,” she said around the rest of the bar and nodded her thanks when he handed her an opened bottle of chilled water. “I figured out what she wants.”

“What who wants?” he asked carefully, watching as she gulped half the water down in one long swallow.

“Paige,” she said with a little gasp, waving at the time line she'd arranged.

“You said she doesn't want to be found,” he said, leaning in to look.

“Oh, she doesn't,” Lydia said, collapsing back into her chair. “She wants revenge.”

Stiles paused, then turned to her. “But she's dead. How can she want anything?”

“Ghosts can want revenge, especially when their deaths weren't natural,” Lydia countered, rolling her chair over so she could reach the board. “And she gets it by killing her killer over and over again.”

She dragged her finger along the line of photographs, all dark-haired, green-eyed boys.

“Derek? But Ennis bit her,” he objected, straightening away from the board.

“Ennis _bit_ her, he didn't kill her,” she said, shaking her head. She normally preferred standing to argue her point but her knees were still wobbly. “And Derek killed her because she asked him to. No, I don't think she blames either of them.”

“Peter,” Stiles said, noticing that all the boys had eyes of pure green, no hints of blue or flecks of gold and brown. “But why would she blame Peter?”

“Sometimes ghosts know more than we give them credit for,” she shrugged. “Maybe she caught him creeping on them, maybe he did something to her, I don't know. We'd have to ask her.”

“And that's a _terrible_ plan,” he said, hands flying up.

“Fifteen dead boys, Stiles,” she said, steel in her voice. “And Peter's her trigger. Look, she stopped for four years after the Hale fire, when he was in a coma. Then she killed four in two years: two when he woke up from the coma, one while he was alpha, and one after his resurrection. Derek wasn't even _in_ Beacon Hills for three of the murders. This is about Peter. We have to find out why, and we have to make her stop.”

His jaw clenched and he looked between her and the board. “Fine, but not today. You already look like you're about to fall over. And I’m telling Scott. You're not going into those woods hunting a ghost alone.”

“Fine.” She couldn't think of a valid argument against any of that, and she knew that it ate at him that he couldn't back her up himself. Ghosts just didn't like him. He had too much life to him, too much spark.

“Get some sleep,” he said, pulling out his phone.

*** ***

She woke up deep in the dark woods, barefoot and freezing in her nightshirt. 

“Crap,” she said, wincing as mud squished between her toes.

Lydia hated the occasional slip ups in her hard won control. She'd studied with Deaton _and_ Morrell to harness her powers, to keep things like this from happening. She didn't mind helping the dead find peace and preventing supernatural murders, but her body and her life were her own. Lydia didn't take well to being forcibly led.

A sound behind her had her whirling, and the misty finger about to poke her dissolved again. Her heart began to pound as she opened her senses.

“Paige?” she called, taking a guess.

“You're not supposed to be here,” a girl said behind her, and Lydia spun to find Paige standing with her arms curled around her waist.

Lydia backed up a step. Paige was ethereal, forever young and beautiful, but there was a heaviness, an awareness about her that most ghosts lacked.

“Paige, you need to stop,” she said, swallowing around the lump in her throat.

It'd been a long time since she'd been afraid of a ghost. Not since that month with Morrell in the catacombs of Paris.

“I can't,” Paige said, words crackling like a radio about to break up. “Can't you see what he's doing?” She looked at Lydia with caustic eyes. “I can see the mark he left on you, you know. It's burned into your soul.”

Her blood ran cold. Peter having any kind of hold on her was her worst nightmare. He was her very own boogeyman in the dark.

“You're lying,” she said, forcing the fear away with anger. “You're a ghost. You can't _see_ souls.”

Paige smiled, skull flickering through before settling on the prettier visage. “The bite changes everybody, but it can only work with what's there.” She disappeared and whispered in her ear, “Lydia Martin, wailing woman.” Paige reappeared in front of her. “Peter Hale's recreator.” Lydia blinked and Paige was inches from her face. “I see his mark on you because I bear it, too.”

She looked over Lydia's shoulder and Lydia made herself turn and look, really look at the forest behind her. At first, it was just a tree, a really big tree. Then she noticed the Celtic five-fold knot carved into one of the thicker roots, the blood staining the bark, and the neat pile of bones, skull nestled on top with the five-fold knot carved in the brow, tucked into a hollow. Wolfsbane was growing around the roots.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, horrified. “Is that another Nemeton?”

“Peter's very own,” Paige said bitterly and Lydia felt an icy chill down her side as she swept by her and shifted to settle on the branch just beside the hollow. “I can't stop because he doesn't want me to.”

“It's not revenge,” Lydia realized.

“Of course it is,” Paige said, shrugging it away. “Just not the kind you thought.” She traced her finger over the side of the tree. “It's in the refrain.”

“I don't understand.” Lydia shook her head.

Paige smiled, and she was lovely. “You will.”

Then her face twisted, flickering, and she came at Lydia, fingers hooked into talons.

Lydia screamed, that eardrum shattering, soul-piercing scream that was her gift and her curse. Paige blew backward, dissolving into the tree, and Scott shot into the clearing, a gray, black, and white blur, his alpha form, snarling at the air.

“She's gone,” Lydia said, folding her arms around her with a shiver. “For now.”

Scott snorted an annoyed doggy snort, then delicately pranced away, only to return with one of her kits clamped in his teeth.

“Let me guess,” she sighed. “Stiles.”

Scott dropped the bag at her feet with a doggy grin and yipped in what she decided was agreement. Of course he found a way to be both nosy and nurturing at the same time.

She opened it to find her heaviest trench coat at the top and immediately put it on, shivering at the sudden warmth.

“Can you find this place again?” she asked, her teeth starting to chatter.

Scott cocked his head for a moment the yipped again. 

“Good, let's go,” she said, snatching up her kit and stomping away. “I have research to do.”

*** ***

Lydia charged into Stiles' apartment the next day. “I know how to prove Peter's a murderer.” Then, “Hi, Mr. Stilinski. Retirement suits you.”

“I'll just be going,” he sighed, standing. “Son, I'll see you later. Ms. Martin, a pleasure as always.”

He left them and Stiles pointed at her. “How did you get the keys to my apartment?”

She rolled her eyes. “I stole them from Scott. That's not the point. I know how we can prove Peter's a murderer.”

“We've always known Peter was a murderer,” Stiles said gently. “From Laura Hale to his nurse, he admits to all if it, and Derek still won't kill him again, and Scott won't make him because he wasn't 'in his right mind'. And we can't really arrest him because no jail can hold him.”

She hadn't realized finger quotes could be sarcastic but that was Stiles for you.

“I know how to prove he's been killing since Derek was fifteen,” she said, smiling smugly.

Stiles sat forward, suddenly eager. “Do tell.”

“Paige said that her revenge was 'in the refrain'. She means the repeating inner rings of the tree,” Lydia said, eyes bright.

“I don't get it,” he said after a moment.

“He bound Paige to that tree to guard it. Then he took teenage boys there and sacrificed them. She's angry, but she didn't lure and kill them. They had to have bled all over that tree. We'll find their DNA in the rings because she wants us to know,” she said.

“And that proves that Peter did it how?” he asked, studying her intently.

She hesitated. “You don't believe me.”

“Of course I believe you,” he said, shaking his head. “Peter Hale's the devil. If you told me he danced the naked tango under the full moon with Baba Yaga, I'd believe you. But we have to make Scott and Derek believe us if we want to make Peter pay and avoid starting a war.”

She breathed out a sigh of relief. “Well, the first ring will be Peter's. She said that it was Peter's very own Nemeton. He bound the tree to him and Paige to the tree. We just need to link Paige's actual death to Peter to prove my entire theory.”

He stared at her for a moment before clapping his hands and standing. “Sounds good to me. Where do we start?”

“You should probably start with pants,” she said, albeit reluctantly. His boxers showed off his thighs nicely.

*** ***

Lydia felt a vindictive little thrill as Peter was pushed to kneel at her feet by Scott and Derek. Stiles closed the circle around him as soon as they stepped back, and Allison had her crossbow trained on him. Seeing him in the weaker position for once was good for her. There was a flicker at the edge of her vision, and she got the feeling Paige liked it, too.

Peter pulled off his blindfold and went still as he saw her backed by his tree. “Lydia, dear, always a pleasure to see you.”

“Peter. Sorry, I can't say the same,” she said, eyebrow raised. “Aren't you going to ask where we are?”

She could _see_ his brain ticking through his options before he smiled wryly. “You've got me. Where are we?”

“We're at the reason you didn't die in the fire,” she said, starting to pace as she saw his eyes widen a bit. “We're at the reason resurrection was a possibility for you. We're at the reason 16 people are dead. Why, Peter, we're at your Nemeton.”

She watched his mind work, felt Paige grow restless behind her, then subside when Stiles pressed a hand to the tree. Peter snarled at that, realization dawning on him.

Lydia smiled as she knelt opposite him, the ash barrier the only thing keeping him from her throat. “You tried to play Emissary and Alpha. Your bad luck, I know the real deals.” She leaned in close and whispered, “You know, I think Derek would have forgiven you all of this out of guilt if it weren't for Paige. First loves are hard to get over.” She drew her finger along the ash line and watched it flare. “Especially when we told him about the aconite poisoning.”

“What poisoning?” he asked, and even she could hear the lie. Derek snarled, and Scott placed a calming hand on his shoulder.

“The thing about losing children is that some parents never really move on,” Lydia said, folding her hands in her lap. She itched to slap him in his smug face but that would mean breaking the circle. “Paige's parents left her room exactly like she'd left it, including her cello and bow. There was aconite all over those strings, along with traces of DMSO. And a girl who already had aconite in her system wouldn't easily accept the bite, would she?”

Peter's eyes flickered blue and he sat back with a sick smile. “But you're missing two things: Ennis bit her and Derek broke her neck. I didn't kill her. I never touched her. They did.”

Lydia waved that away. “People survive broken necks on occasion, especially someone in the middle of metamorphosis. And Derek was too freaked out to really notice, wasn't he? You knew he'd be as gentle with her as he could. And you did touch her, Peter, by your own admission. You told Stiles years ago that you placed the body where it could be found, chalked up to yet another animal attack. But her body was never found because you needed a soul of purity and innocence to guard your source of power. And you let Derek think he'd killed her because the guilty are so easy to manipulate.”

“If you know all of this, then why am I still alive?” he asked, still smiling that creepy smile.

Lydia stood and let some of the Other in her shine through. “Because there's someone else who wants to say hello.”

She opened the bag tied to her waist and pulled out a skull carved with the five-fold knot and tossed it into his lap, watching terror melt his smile away.

She turned her back on him as the wind began to wail, and his shrill scream rose before being cut off. She walked to Stiles, leaving Allison and her hunters to clean up the body, cut down the Nemeton, and stage the scene. She was done here. Poor Stiles, he'd have a lot of explaining to do tomorrow. Stiles chafed her arms when she shivered and she pressed her face into his chest.

“Take me home,” she murmured and he pressed a kiss to her hair. “Stay with me.”

“This doesn't count as our first date, does it?” he asked, wrapping an arm around her waist and leading her through the thick woods. “Because decapitation, not a lot of ways to beat that.”

“You'll think of something,” Lydia said and smiled to greet the coming dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> I played fast and loose with a lot of things that were in Visionary, so this gets the Alternate Universe tag.
> 
> Also, the title comes from the poem Things My Mother Didn't Tell Me But Should Have by Meggie C. Royer.


End file.
